As anyone got anything on the 'Internet Movie Database'?

"That's strange clive, is the film BBFC classified?"

No it's not, my ex-business partner is expecting the distribution company to take care of that.

My guess is that the film won't get a listing until it gets distribution or a major festival showing, as neither have manifested in nearly a year I'm starting to believe that No Place is destined to sit on a shelf gathering dust. It's frustrating for me because I watching my ex-business partner miss opportunity after opportunity to get the film sold.

Anyhow, I promised myself that I was going to stop bitching about that and get on with my life.

What I would say though, to any aspiring filmmaker, is "never, never, never make your first feature film within a business partnership and always keep control of selling your film." It's just heartbreaking to put three years work and ten of thousands of dollars into a film only to have it taken away on completion and wasted.

The fact that I can't even get an IMDB listing out of all that effort and investment is a testiment to how badly wrong this project has gone.
 
Ha! I try my best... but any site that 'lists' the film as exisiting seems to work. Hell I was thinking about setting up a site that Indie film makers could use that would enable them to get that 'proof' for the IMDB...

Actually... that's not a bad idea!

Phil Hobden
-- Modern Life? --
"Life sucks. Get a helmet"
 
I am there for work on others' films. :) I guess that will make it easier to get my stuff listed there, but I haven't tried yet. Once I get "Killer Squirrel" uploaded here, it'll help. :)

And Steve... consider this a psychic touch- hard to lay a finger on you from Ohio. ;)
 
I'm on th IMDB because I donated money to the 1 second film. Although, I should have more credits added soon. My directoral debut film, Hellp, has just finished the production phase and will have a final cut by mid December. Hellp is a money pit and if a movie with a budget of $83 bucks can make it on there, hopefully my film with a budget of several thousand dollars will make it on there.

www.hellpmovie.com for those of you interested
 
Ok- go to the main Imdb page, look for "Macbeth 3000"

Scroll to the bottom and look at the "Other title recommmendations".

I dunno how it works, but I think seeing "Goldeneye" and "2001: A Space Travesty" (Leslie Neilson) together is amazing.. not to mention Leprechan 4!!!!!

HAHA!
 
So has anyone ever sold their film on imdb?

Or has anything happened from listing your film on imdb to make it worthwhile?
 
The fact that I can't even get an IMDB listing out of all that effort and investment is a testiment to how badly wrong this project has gone.
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Let's hope that the film (No Place) does get it's deserved listing, Clive. Besides, "The Ed Wood of the North-East" has a listing!

And for anyone else's info' this 1st feature for Clive is better than most of the films that have originated from the same region...
 
Let's hope that the film (No Place) does get it's deserved listing, Clive. Besides, "The Ed Wood of the North-East" has a listing!
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:bang: I'd laugh, if it wasn't such a travesty.

Actually, I've thought about this and have asked them ot look at this again. I'lll keep people posted.
 
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I thought you might be interested in my current debate with IMDB with regards their non-listing of "No Place."

Here's their reply to my appeal

Thanks for your email to IMDb regarding a new title addition.

Unfortunately, none of the factors you cite will help this title meet our listing criteria.

Remember that eligibility is not the same thing as existence. We are not asking you to prove or convince us that the film exists: we are asking you to verify that it fulfills our requirements to be listed, i.e. that it has been completed and released (i.e. shown to the general public) or that there is a preponderance of evidence that it will be completed and released in the near future.

This means that, in most cases, until a film has been screened at a qualifying screening or has been picked up by an established distributor, we will not include it in the database. We make exceptions for a few high-profile projects where eligibility can be easily inferred -- see http://pro.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?titlesinproduction . Note that there are some events that resemble film festivals that are not qualifying; see http://pro.imdb.com/updates/guide/festivals for more details.

If you have additional information to verify that the film is eligible to be included (e.g., details of screenings) please go back to your original submission, add the new information or links, and resubmit the title. For help on how to do this, please see the instructions at http://pro.imdb.com/help/show_leaf?wheresmytitle

There may be some titles in the database that do not meet these criteria. Most of these were added before the current criteria were established in late 2003; we certainly welcome those being called to our attention for removal (through our normal data update mechanism), as we have not had time to go back and audit all 350,000 titles in the database.
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I've responded with this

Thanks for the additonal information. I do understand why you've rejected my film.

I would suggest that maybe you need to consider the possibility of opening a new category of films, that are completed and are seeking distribution.

For most indie film makers the job of getting distribution is a difficult one, especially when you are making high quality, no name, arthouse films like myself.

I am no less a legitimate a film maker simply because I am in the limbo between production and distribution, and my film is no less a film.

Eventually No Place will get a festival screening and suddenly it will appear legitmate to you. In the meantime as a writer and director I do not exist to the industry, as far as you are concerned. This, on some level, isn't right.

At the end of the day it is your database and your choice, but I represent a grey area in the industry that you currently turn your back on.

The industry is changing, with production costs falling there is an ever larger sector of indie filmmakers. We are the people who use your database as a source of information. I would suggest that you sit back and consider whether you are really serving our needs as well as you could.
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I will continue with this, I don't think that the industry's database should be prejudice against indie filmmakers.
 
Clive, I noticed (I'm sure you did too) the local media reference as regards publicity for a film. You've mentioned this, I think, elsewhere on indietalk. Wasn't there some footage of NP on TV? I didn't get to see it but was that BBC? Was there radio publicity too? What exactly is local media in the digital era? We all know that each county has it's local news papers, but surely these other broadcast media hold a broader reference.

Have other indietalk users met these barriers? I fully note the imdb reasonings for elibility, but as you say there are grey areas. The asian feature I did A.D. duties on has a listing, and that it has one...
 
IMDB Eligibility rules
For a work to be eligible for inclusion in the database it:

must be of general public interest and
should be available to the public or have been available in the past.
It does not have to be a feature film. We accept most kinds of films/shows:
features
documentaries
experimental films
short films, but for the time being no commercials, video clips or music videos (these go to the biographical section under 'other works')
films made for the big screen, TV and video
TV series and mini series, but for now not individual TV series episodes.
video games
General public interest is assumed if a work...
has been released to cinemas
has been shown on non-local TV
has been released on video or prints have been made available to the public (but see exceptions below on limited distribution titles)
has been accepted and shown on film festivals that don't accept everything regardless of its quality (if you have doubt, see this page for details)
has been made by a (now) famous artist or person of public interest.
has become famous for some reason and is widely talked about/referenced in non-local media or the 'film community' or is now of general historic interest for some reason.

General public interest is NOT given just because a work...
is of a strictly private nature (home movies)
is an amateur production made for local consumption by friends, family members and neighbours, the local school campus etc. (including "local access television")
has been digitized and put on some internet page for downloading (unless general public interest is assumed for one of the reasons stated above)
is being offered to the public on the web via home made video tape copies (unless general public interest is assumed for one of the reasons stated above)
has been made during/for a film class, workshop or any other educational program (unless general public interest is assumed for one of the reasons stated above)
has been made for a local institution (such as a university or company) for internal use (unless general public interest is assumed for one of the reasons stated above)


IMDb retains the right to reject any work whose eligibility according to above rules is dubious and/or unverifiable. This includes works which are in their very first development stages. They may be rejected at that stage but accepted later when they are actually finished and released. IMDb retains the right to change and adapt eligibility rules as circumstances require.
 
Yep those are rules OK.

My argument with IMDB is not whether they are right in applying thier rules, but whether their rules are fair. As I can't get my film listed, I guess it would be fair to say that I don't think they are. All I'm suggesting is that they look at how thier rules effect indie's who have made a film that is seeking distribution.

I think I have a valid point. The truth is that I could go out and shoot a mini-dv short today, enter it into a festival, hype it up in around the internet and get it listed on IMDB within a couple of weeks, and yet I can't get my £350,000 budget HD feature film listed because it is seeking distribution, rather than having achieved it.

Getting distribution for that kind of film is just a little more complicated than getting some DVD printed and putting together a website. It's a long frustating process.

At the end of the day to doesn't really matter whether they list it or not. But having put three years of my life, and gone bankrupt in the process of making it I guess it's fair to say that I'm miffed that I can't even get a simple IMDB listing for the effort.
 
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here's mine: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0943116/

if your project is still under pre-production, only feature that will be for theatrical release can be submitted at this time, short films, and direct to video ones must have had finished and hold an 'open' screanning, i dont' think internet screening counts, but what you should do is, if you have a screening, take pictures, post it at your official site, and put link there, the people at IMDB would quickly check online to see if it was 'screened' at a venue or not and will consider it to be added.

In the past, I was told that once your movie is listed, you must get at least 5 votes before you can submit another film for listing... Not sure if that's changed, since now I can submit anytime and not worrying about being rated or not...

Also, another filmmaker mentioned once that you should not rate yourself or ask your friend to rate it 10 because their system's mathematic calculation would assume some of those 10 were 'fake' and automatically add you a 1 to balance it off... so best bet, anything from 7 to 9 is good :)
 
Clive- post some of the generic film info (Cast/Crew/Titles/Etc) here and I can submit it as well- when multiple people submit the same data, I think it boosts chances.
 
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